


gonna run while we're young

by starlight_sugar



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7826014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy has a crush on a basketball player. There's also a basketball player in his study group. These things might be related. Jeremy might need a new study group.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gonna run while we're young

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fictional story involving fictional likenesses of real people. Rooster Teeth does not have my permission to use any portion of my work in their content.
> 
> Content warning: this fic contains scenes/mentions of underage (college) drinking. Furthermore, while I am in college, I neither cheerlead nor play basketball. (Pep band! Go pep.) Any inaccuracies are accidental and any corrections are welcomed with open arms.

It starts as something stupid on a Saturday night, a way to pass the time. It was Meg’s idea, which means that it’s amazing, and also a little terrible, but he’s there with her anyways. “Cheerleader bonding,” she’d called it, after snapchatting him a picture of a bottle of rum. “It’ll be fun,” she’d said.

Jeremy’s having fun. Jeremy’s also a little tipsy. Those might be connected.

The night, which actually does start as half of the cheer squad all in one room, ends with four of them sitting on the floor of Barbara and Meg’s apartment. The bottle is in the middle of the circle but they all have cups of it. It feels like any moment now they’re going to start playing Never Have I Ever or something. Jeremy kind of loves it.

“Okay, okay,” Barbara says, eyes bright, and drums her hands on her knees. “Cutest guy on the football team.”

“None of them,” Jeremy says immediately. They’re not his type, and also, football players are assholes.

“None of them?” Meg gasps, scandalized. “What about Ryan?”

“Too big.”

“Too _big?"_

“Jeremy, you’re tiny,” Mica scoffs. “Everyone’s too big for you.”

“I’m taller than you are.”

“You don’t have to remind me.”

“Okay, so Jeremy doesn’t like football players.” Barbara takes a sip of rum, eyes narrowing. “So… hockey?”

“Hockey,” Jeremy repeats. “Is that a thing? What do hockey players look like?”

“Is that a thing, he says,” Meg mutters. “Hockey’s a thing! They use the-” she mimes using a hockey stick and glares at Jeremy. “Of course hockey’s a thing.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “No, I mean, there’s a type of guy who plays football, just like there’s a type who plays basketball. Is there a type who plays hockey?”

“Big dudes,” Barbara says. “Definitely.”

“Wait!” Mica points at Jeremy. “Basketball.”

“What about basketball?”

“Nobody said anything about basketball.”

Meg gasps and leans in like she’s learned a secret. “Jeremy likes basketball players!”

“He likes people taller than him,” Barbara deadpans.

Jeremy thinks that if Barbara weren’t the tallest person in the room, she wouldn’t be pointing this out, but what does he know? “There aren’t a lot of other options,” he grumbles.

“Oh, but football players are too big?” Mica scoffs. “C’mon, spill, who’s the cutest basketball player?”

“You didn’t answer for football!”

“Ryan,” Mica says, unfazed. “You have an answer, don’t you?”

Jeremy has an answer. He shouldn’t say the answer, because they’ll tease him every time they have to cheer for a basketball game, and he doesn’t want to deal with that. He shouldn’t say the answer because these are his friends, and they’re going to do what friends do and bug him about it. He shouldn’t say.

He grabs the rum bottle, takes a swig, and announces, “It’s Trevor.”

Barbara gasps dramatically. “Trevor the Tremor Collins?”

“Nobody calls him The Tremor.” Jeremy frowns. “I would’ve heard that.”

“You would’ve _heard,_ ” Meg repeats, and pokes his knee, grinning. “That means you’re listening for gossip, which means you have it bad.”

“He’s pretty,” Jeremy says, a little helplessly. Cheerleading is a great sport because he gets to watch the basketball players, even if he doesn’t talk to them too often. But he likes them. He likes Trevor.

“He’s pretty,” Mica repeats, a little teasingly. Jeremy knows it’s only because this is the first time he’s ever showed any interest in anyone, but he still fidgets away from her. “What kind of pretty?”

“What do you mean?”

“Rugged-pretty, nerdy-pretty, handsome-pretty…”

“The- he’s-” Jeremy sighs. He’s a little drunk, so they can’t hold this against him, right? “He’s really lickable.”

“Holy shit,” Barbara says, and promptly collapses into giggles.

“You’re not wrong,” Meg says thoughtfully. “I mean, I wouldn’t lick him, but I get the appeal-”

“Let’s not talk about this,” Jeremy says. “Let’s talk about hockey players.”

“Sure, Jeremy,” Meg says, only barely patronizing. “We can talk about hockey players.”

Barbara gains enough composure to nod seriously. “Hockey is serious business, we can talk about that.”

“Hockey players wear too much gear to be lickable,” Mica says, a little too innocently, but she holds her hands up in surrender as soon as Jeremy glares at her. “We can talk about them, let’s move on. We’re moving on.”

And that’s the end. Nobody says the word “lickable” for the rest of the night, nobody brings up basketball, and nobody brings up Trevor. It’s just a night out with his teammates. Nothing that could possibly come back and bite sober Jeremy in the ass.

Yeah. One of these days, drunk Jeremy is going to learn to keep his fucking mouth shut.

 

From: Mica (2:15 PM)  
We still on for studying today?

To: Mica (2:16 PM)  
If you’re not too hungover sure

From: Mica (2:17 PM)  
Fuck hangovers we need to study

From: Mica (2:17 PM)  
Anyways my roommate has a math test this week too, he wants to know if he can hang out and study with us

To: Mica (2:19 PM)  
Your roommate, the aerospace engineer major, wants to watch us study for precalculus

From: Mica (2:20 PM)  
Okay he’s a little more advanced than us but he says he studies better around people

From: Mica (2:21 PM)  
Also: if we get stuck, we can ask him //anything//

To: Mica (2:22 PM)  
I like the way you think

To: Mica (2:22 PM)  
He can come

 

Mica is a lot of things to Jeremy. She’s his teammate, and one of the only girls on the cheerleading team who’s shorter than him, so he gets to lift her in routines. She’s in his precalculus class, because they’re about equally good at math. She’s his one-woman study group, and she’s probably his best friend.

Most relevant right now, Mica is the fucking _asshole_ who’s standing in front of his dorm room side by side with Trevor fucking Collins.

“Hi, Jeremy,” Mica says cheerfully, with a glint in her eye and a completely shit-eating grin on her face. “This is my roommate. You know Trevor, from the basketball team.”

“Yeah, hey, what’s up,” Jeremy says as casually as possible, but his ears are ringing. Mica had mentioned that she lived in a co-ed suite, that she lived with a guy, but she never said that she lived with _Trevor_. He’s pretty sure drunk Jeremy would’ve picked a better word than “lickable” if he knew that. “I, uh, didn’t realize you guys were roommates.”

“We went to middle school together,” Trevor explains, not noticing that Jeremy is having a crisis, thank god. He much more put-together now than he normally does, although Jeremy’s standard for “normal” Trevor involves a basketball court and a lot of sweat. “We ran into each other at orientation, actually. We hadn’t seen each other in years, but we decided we should apply to live together.”

“Better someone you know than someone you don’t, right?” Mica smiles up at Trevor. “And you know Jeremy, of course.”

“Mica’s teammate, yeah.” Trevor smiles at him. “Nice to actually meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Jeremy says. Maybe this is a good thing. He’s seen Trevor at team get-togethers and parties, but they haven’t had a one-on-one conversation. Maybe if he gets to know him as a person, he won’t want to lick the guy so badly. It’s a long shot, but it’s still a shot.

“Is Matt here?” Mica pushes up onto her toes to peer around Jeremy’s shoulder.

Jeremy realizes abruptly that they’re still in the hall and he should really let them in, so he opens the door wider and shuffles away. His room is cramped as hell, of course it is, but there’s still plenty of room for all three of them. “Nah, he went home for the weekend. He says we can eat his snacks if we want.”

“If we eat Matt’s snacks, we’re going to die young.” Mica plops down on Matt’s bed. “Okay, we’ve got two beds and three of us, who’s sitting where?”

“We also have two desks,” Jeremy points out. “You know, those things that most people use for studying?”

Mica waves him off. “Beds are more comfortable. Treyco, you wanna sit with Jeremy?”

“Shouldn’t you two sit together?” Trevor looks between them. “I mean, you have the same class.”

“A great point,” Jeremy says, a little loud to his own ears, and sits next to Mica on Matt’s bed. “You get the whole bed to yourself, congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Trevor says, and for a second Jeremy is thrown by how genuine it sounds. But Mica pulls a calculator out of her purse, Trevor sits on Jeremy’s bed, and the moment passes.

The thing is, Jeremy learns pretty quickly, it’s hard to study with Trevor in the room. Part of that is the aesthetic thing - he’s only human, for christ’s sake, and there’s a remarkably pretty guy sitting in Jeremy’s bed right now, and that’s distracting - but part of it is that Jeremy wants to talk to him. There’s just enough of a disconnect between “basketball player” and “aerospace engineer” that he wants to ask about it, and Trevor is laser-focused on whatever he’s reading about and Jeremy wants to know what it is.

He can’t ask, of course, because they both have shit to study for, so he settles for ripping a page out of his notebook, writing _what the_ **_hell,_** and setting it between him and Mica.

Mica doesn’t even pause in writing out an equation with one hand as she picks up the paper with her other hand. She glances at it, rolls her eyes, and begins writing.

Jeremy goes back to his own studying. It’s not hard material or anything, and he’s not having trouble with it, but it’s taking a little more focus than normal right now.

After a minute, Mica drops the paper between them. Jeremy picks it up and smooths it out on his notebook.

 _He honestly just wanted to come,_ the note says, and Jeremy can practically hear Mica saying it. _I didn’t warn you because I didn’t want you to freak out, but he’s a cool guy. Promise._

Jeremy decides that maybe he shouldn’t mention the licking thing in a note. He doesn’t really want physical evidence of that.

“You guys know you don’t have to be quiet for me, right?” Trevor says, turning a page in his textbook. Jeremy jumps, accidentally drawing a line across the note as he does; Trevor looks at him and half-smiles. “You don’t have to pass notes, you can just talk.”

“What if we’re talking about you?” Mica counters. Jeremy wants to cringe, but she just stares him down. “What then?”

“Then I expect you to talk about me to my face,” Trevor says, almost primly. “Anything you have to say, I can handle.”

“Your nose is weird,” Jeremy blurts out. It’s not true, but he wants to test this.

Trevor blinks at him, placid and deadpan. “Thank you for your honesty, Jeremy,” he says, and goes back to his book.

Jeremy glances at Mica. “His nose isn’t really that weird.”

Mica pats his arm. “That’s okay.”

“I thanked you for your honesty and you lied to me?” Trevor says, mock-outraged. When Jeremy looks back at him, he shakes his head. “Never mind. Your ears are weird, Jeremy.”

This is, really and truly, not how Jeremy anticipated his first conversation with Trevor going. But he’ll take it. “Yeah, but they’re the only ones I’ve got.”

“You poor bastard.”

“I’m not the one with the weird nose.”

“Neither am I, apparently.”

“He’s got you there,” Mica mutters.

Jeremy sighs. “How about we agree everyone in this room has normal facial features and go back to studying?”

“Are ears a facial feature?” Trevor taps his highlighter on his chin. “Your ears aren’t really your face, are they?”

“Oh my god, we can have this debate in twenty minutes,” Mica says. “Some of us actually want to study instead of debating semantics.”

“Nobody _wants_ to study,” Jeremy says, but he still locks eyes with Trevor and mouths _yes they are._ Trevor frowns at him, but Jeremy moves on, because he kind of has to. He flips pages in his notebook and tries to focus on matrices and the numbers in front of him, and not that he can definitely still feel Trevor looking at him.

Twenty minutes later, like clockwork, Trevor says, “Ears are definitely not a facial feature.”

“Bullshit they aren’t,” Jeremy counters, and just barely keeps himself from smiling.

 

Basketball games are, in Jeremy’s opinion, vastly superior to football games, as far as things to cheer for go. They’re inside, the court is smaller, there are fewer weird people wolf-whistling at them as they do their routines, and there’s less pressure to be the entertainment for people who don’t care about football. Also, he played football for a couple years in high school, and it was bullshit. He’s happier watching the basketball games.

The thing is, at the next game, three days after the study session? He can’t stop staring at Trevor.

Barbara pokes him when she notices, about halfway through the first quarter. “He’s too sweaty to be lickable right now,” she says, but he can hear the question in her voice.

Jeremy turns to her. “Did you know that he’s Mica’s roommate?”

“Yeah,” Barbara says. “Duh.”

“I had no idea.”

“So you accidentally told her that you wanted to lick her roommate?”

“Yeah, but then she brought him over to my room the next day.”

“And?”

Jeremy sighs and lets his eyes drift back to Trevor, still on the court. “And I like him as a person, too.”

“Yikes,” Barbara says sympathetically. “That means it’s a legit crush, right?”

“I think it is.”

Barbara pats his arm lightly. “That’s rough, buddy.”

“Thanks,” Jeremy says. Trevor passes the ball off and takes running across the court, and the people in the audience who actually give a fuck start shouting. Jeremy just turns to Barbara. “This isn’t gonna work, is it?”

“That’s a little fatalistic.”

“No, it’s realistic.”

“Your realism is fatal.” She frowns. “Crushes aren’t a bad thing.”

“They’re the worst thing,” Jeremy counters. “I have better things to be doing at a basketball game than watch one player.”

There are some shouts and a whistle blowing. Barbara gets to her feet immediately, offering a hand to pull Jeremy up too. “Like cheerleading?”

“Yeah, like cheerleading.” Jeremy picks up the megaphone and glances at Meg. “What’re we doing, captain?”

“I’m thinking just a go-fight-win,” Meg says, and nods at him.

Jeremy has what he thinks is the most important role on the cheer squad, which is that he leads the cheers. He, as the loudest person in the room, gets to be the one who lifts the megaphone and shout at the audience, instead of doing things that involve pom-poms and flips. Mostly, anyways. Sometimes the flips are fun.

Go-fight-win is such a normal cheer that Jeremy practically goes on autopilot, only comes to when the rest of the squad behind him erupts into cheers and yells of “Go, Eagles!” and “Bluemont!”

Barbara raises an eyebrow at him as he sits down. “So you’re not going to act on this crush at all?”

“Nope,” Jeremy says decisively. “No point. I’ll just get a friend out of this. Nothing wrong with the friend zone.”

“The friend zone is a social construct,” Barbara says, “and also, I don’t think you should give up that easily.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re not the only one who was staring.”

Jeremy blinks at her and looks back at the court. Trevor’s back is to them, and as a ref tosses the ball into play, Jeremy knows that Trevor won’t be looking at them any time soon. There’s no way to be sure if Barbara’s telling the truth or not.

“Really,” he says, a little flatly.

“Really.” Barbara grins. “And let me tell you, your ass looks great in those pants, and he definitely noticed.”

 

From: Mica (4:15 PM)  
Trevor got the best test grade he’s ever gotten after our last study session

From: Mica (4:16 PM)  
He thinks it’s because you and I are magic so he wants to know if you can come over tonight and study before his lit exam

To: Mica (4:18 PM)  
You’re fucking with me right now, right

From: Mica (4:19 PM)  
No I swear to god he’s really superstitious

From: Mica (4:19 PM)  
And I also got a great score on that math test, so…

To: Mica (4:20 PM)  
What if it only works when we’re doing math

From: Mica (4:22 PM)  
Then bring math oh my god just come over

To: Mica (4:23 PM)  
Matt also thinks you’re fucking with me

From: Mica (4:24 PM)  
You’d only tell Matt if you were actually leaving

To: Mica (4:25 PM)  
You’re in room 512 right

 

“Welcome to literature hell,” Mica says grimly as soon as she opens the door.

Jeremy looks over her shoulder. Trevor is sitting at a desk with no less than four books spread out in front of him, scribbling something in a notebook in his lap.

“What the fuck,” he says, as reasonably as he can.

Trevor glances up and smiles at him, only for a second, but Jeremy’s heartbeat picks up anyways. “Hi. Thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” Jeremy says, because it isn’t. “I wasn’t doing anything anyways. Mica, what’re we doing?”

“We can go over this dividing polynomials bullshit, c’mon.” Mica opens the door wider and lets Jeremy in. He glances around the room as he goes - one side has a Harley Quinn poster and the other has a NASA poster, so he doesn’t have to question whose bed is whose - and follows Mica to sit on her bed. “Seriously, do you understand it?”

“Mostly, you?”

“Not at all. Teach me.”

“But quietly,” Trevor says, and flips a page in one of the books.

Jeremy can’t help himself; he cranes his neck to look at Trevor’s desk. “What are you reading?”

“Too much,” Trevor mutters.

“So take a break.”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“When I’m done.”

Jeremy rolls his eyes. “That’s not a break.”

Trevor looks up at last and raises his eyebrows. “What do you say a break is?”

“I’ll let you know in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes,” Mica repeats. Jeremy barely manages not to jump, because he might’ve forgotten she was sitting next to him. “I’m holding you guys to that.”

Trevor sighs. “Okay.”

“Deal,” Jeremy says, and picks up the precalculus textbook. Hopefully he understands this well enough to explain it in twenty minutes.

 

From: (765) 800-5625 (8:26 PM)  
Thanks again for showing up

From: (765) 800-5625 (8:27 PM)  
This is Trevor

From: (765) 800-5625 (8:27 PM)  
In case you couldn’t tell

To: (765) 800-5625 (8:29 PM)  
I could tell but thanks for clarifying

From: (765) 800-5625 (8:30 PM)  
How did the math go

To: (765) 800-5625 (8:31 PM)  
It’s been better. How were the books?

From: (765) 800-5625 (8:32 PM)  
I’m never taking another literature class

To: (765) 800-5625 (8:32 PM)  
Good choice

 

Add (765) 800-5625 to your contacts?

Save contact as: Treyco Malfoy

 

Trevor spends most of the first half of the next game on the sidelines, clapping for his teammates and glancing over at the cheerleaders. Jeremy knows this because he spends most of the first half looking at Trevor.

“You guys are getting really good at not making eye contact,” Barbara says just before halftime.

Jeremy raises his eyebrows. “Is that a good thing?”

“It’s an annoying thing. You know he’s looking at you, right?”

Despite his better judgment, Jeremy looks over. Trevor is watching his teammates on the court, which makes much more sense than him watching Jeremy. “No, he’s not.”

“No, he’s not,” she says patiently, “but only because you looked over.”

Trevor’s head starts to turn, and Jeremy smoothly looks back at Barbara.

She raises her eyebrows at him. “You looked away.”

“He was turning.”

“You’ve spent time together since the last game.”

“Studied together. I got his number.”

“You didn’t have his number?”

Jeremy shrugs. “I didn’t know him.”

“You only wanted to lick him?”

He groans. “Can we let that die?”

“Never,” Barbara promises, but she lets it go anyways. “So you asked him to study with you.”

“No, he asked me.”

“And you don’t think he likes you?”

Jeremy shakes his head. “Mica said it’s a superstition thing. He got a good test score when he studied with me there, so if he keeps studying with me there, he’ll keep doing well.”

“Superstition,” Barbara repeats flatly. “Really.”

He frowns. “Yeah, why?”

She shakes her head. “Trevor doesn’t-”

The buzzer cuts her off, signaling halftime, and they jump to their feet in perfect unison. “Tell me later,” Jeremy says, and follows Meg’s lead as they take the court for halftime. They’re performing to one side of the bleachers - unfortunately not the side that the basketball team is on, but Jeremy might just be okay with that. He doesn’t want to get distracted by Trevor’s face.

 

To: Barbara (10:42 PM)  
You never finished what you were saying earlier

From: Barbara (10:43 PM)  
Never mind

From: Barbara (10:43 PM)  
I talked to Mica, she cleared it up

To: Barbara (10:45 PM)  
Cleared what up?

From: Barbara (10:46 PM)  
The thing I was confused about

From: Barbara (10:46 PM)  
Don’t worry about it

To: Barbara (10:47 PM)  
Well, now I’m worried about it

 

The first time Matt meets Trevor, he says “Ah, you must be Trevor,” in such a tone of voice that Jeremy can hear the raised-eyebrow thing he’s doing.

“And you must be Matt,” Trevor answers, calm as ever.

“Matt, just let him in,” Jeremy says, looking up from his bed. He can barely see Trevor over Matt’s shoulder, but from what he can see, Trevor is doing the eyebrow thing right back at Matt, which is just perfect.

“I haven’t met him,” Matt says, not turning around. “He hasn’t said he’s Trevor yet, I don’t want him in our room when I don’t know who he is.”

“I know who he is, let him in so he can study his rocket science shit.”

“But do you really know who I am?” Trevor leans around Matt, arching his eyebrow at Jeremy. “What’s my middle name?”

“What’s _my_ middle name?” Jeremy counters.

Trevor’s eyebrow drops. “Good point. Let’s just agree we all don’t know each other.”

“Then you can’t come in,” Matt says.

Jeremy picks up the closest thing to him on his bed, which turns out to be a capped highlighter, and throws it at the back of Matt’s head.

Matt yelps. “Ow, Jeremy, Jesus fucking-”

“Trevor, come in,” Jeremy says loudly. “Matt’s going to go to his side of the room and shut the hell up for a while.”

“You’re being a real shit,” Matt complains, but moves out of the way anyways. “Welcome to our room.”

“I’ve been here before, but thanks.” Trevor wanders over to sit next to Jeremy on his bed. Jeremy, for his part, is acutely aware of all the distance between them, but he doesn’t feel like he has to move away, so he’ll count that as a win. “Your roommate’s weird.”

Matt shakes his head. “I was going to offer to share snacks, but now they’re all mine.”

“They were always yours,” Jeremy says absently, and turns his attention to Trevor. “What’re you studying today?”

Trevor shrugs. “Just physics, nothing special.”

Jeremy narrows his eyes. “Is it rocket physics?”

“It could help with rocket physics,” Trevor says, in such a careful tone that Jeremy can tell that he means that it’s actually rocket physics.

“You’re full of shit,” he announces. “And I’m doing chemistry, not that you asked.”

“Chemistry, really? Aren’t you an art major?”

“I need the science credit. It’s an easy class, it’s just a TA teaching it.”

“The cute TA,” Matt mutters, because he’s a fucking _ass._

Trevor lifts his eyebrows. “You have a cute TA?”

Jeremy wants to say that no, he does not. “The cute TA” is another product of tipsy Jeremy, who continues to ruin sober Jeremy’s life. He’d mentioned that his chemistry TA was tall and dark-haired like Trevor and was, by extension, technically attractive. And then Matt took that and ran with it, because he’s a dick.

“I mean, yeah,” Jeremy says, because he’s not about to explain any of that. “He’s got a boyfriend, though, so, y’know.”

“He’s hot for teacher,” Matt says, unhelpfully.

Jeremy flips him off and hopes, rather desperately, that this isn’t going to somehow make Trevor think less of him. “I’m hot for guys who look like him, which isn’t a big deal.”

“What does he look like?” Trevor says. It’s the very definition of politely interested, and really, Jeremy’s not about to risk describing someone who looks like Trevor as being attractive.

“How about instead of talking about my chemistry TA, I study chemistry,” he says.

It’s a shitty diversionary tactic, but Trevor sets his textbook on his lap. “Twenty minutes,” he says, a confirmation rather than a question.

“Twenty minutes,” Jeremy agrees, and tries really, really hard to lose himself in basic chemistry.

It doesn’t work, because he keeps checking his phone, waiting for twenty minutes to pass. As soon as they do, Trevor looks at him. “Seriously, what does the cute TA look like?”

Jeremy shrugs. “He’s tall,” he offers.

“You’re five-foot-four,” Trevor says, not unkindly, like he’s trying not to call Jeremy short.

“Fuck you,” he says anyways. “Tall, dark hair, smart science guy.”

“Grad student?”

“Sophomore, but really into teaching.”

“I have a grad student teaching one of my math classes,” Trevor says. “She’s all right. Not a tall-dark-and-brilliant type, though.”

Jeremy shrugs. “Not everyone is as lucky as I am,” he says, and thankfully Trevor cracks a smile. “The grass is always greener, or something.”

“You get to spend time with cheerleaders,” Trevor points out. “Most college guys would die for that.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “They’re all terrible.”

“Even Mica?”

“She’s the worst.”

“And I can tell her that?”

“Oh, god, no, she’d kick my ass.”

Trevor laughs. “Yeah, she would.”

Jeremy leans towards Trevor, almost without thinking about it, except he realizes that this is probably the closest they’ve ever been. Trevor’s stupidly magnetic, and Jeremy wants to let himself be pulled in, wants to be a part of whatever Trevor will let him be.

The thing is, god help him, he likes Trevor. He likes that he’s good at basketball, that he’s pretty, that he’s apparently something of a genius. He likes his eyebrow-arches and his inability to let a question go. He wants to know Trevor’s middle name, wants Trevor to feel at home in his bedroom, wants Trevor to feel at home with him.

There’s a pretty big chance that this crush isn’t just because Trevor’s pretty anymore. Jeremy might be fucked.

Trevor smiles at him, eyes crinkling around the edges in a way that Jeremy hasn’t seen before. “She’s cool, though,” he says, and it takes Jeremy a couple seconds to remember that they were talking about Mica. Right.

Jeremy clears his throat and moves away, as subtly as he can. “The coolest,” he agrees. His phone buzzes next to him, and Jeremy takes the opportunity to look at the clock. “Break’s over. Another twenty minutes?”

“Yeah,” Trevor agrees, voice a little softer. Jeremy glances at him, but he’s already looking back at his textbook. “Twenty minutes.”

 

From: Matt (4:28 PM)  
Quit flirting while I’m in the room with you

 

“You’ve got it bad,” Matt says, not three seconds after Trevor leaves.

Jeremy groans. “He’s pretty and he’s a fucking rocket scientist and he puts up with you being weird-”

“And he asked what kind of guys you’re interested in and he knows your major and how tall you are and couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. I see why you like him.”

Jeremy stares. Matt shrugs. “Just an outside perspective, y’know.”

There are a thousand responses to that, most of them summing up to “that’s bullshit,” but Jeremy can’t make his voice work. He just keeps staring at Matt.

“Did you not notice?” Matt frowns. “You were flirting pretty hard, but he was flirting right back at you.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Jeremy says, but it’s like he’s on autopilot. Trevor asked what Jeremy’s type was. That’s not something most people just do platonically, especially not after only knowing each other for a couple of weeks. That’s definitely a flirt move. And after the whole eye-contact leaning-in thing, Trevor had definitely been more subdued. Not like disappointment, but something like disappointment.

“Yes, he was,” Matt says patiently. “That was flirting.”

“Holy shit, that was flirting,” Jeremy whispers.

“You should ask him out sometime,” Matt says, in what he probably thinks is a helpful fashion. Jeremy doesn’t think it’s very helpful, but Matt has helped him enough for the day.

“Maybe,” Jeremy allows, and looks where Trevor had been sitting. They’d been close. Matt probably has the right idea here.

 

Group chat: CHEER SQUAD, BITCHES

From: Meg (9:47 AM)  
Remember tonight is our big rivalry game against Coldwood College, so come ready to cheer your asses off! You all know the drill, be there at the usual call time. And wear extra blue if you have it!

From: Meg (9:48 AM)  
And before anyone asks, any blue hair dye has to be wash-out.

From: Jeremy (9:48 AM)  
hey boss can I dye my hair blue

From: Jeremy (9:48 AM)  
oh

From: Mica (9:50 AM)  
well that answers that

 

Jeremy doesn’t know too much about Coldwood College. He knows they’re in West Virginia, that their colors are green and white, and that their cheer uniforms are pretty cute. He also knows that he has never wanted anything as badly as he wants them to lose this game.

“Fuck Coldwood,” Barbara says when he says as much to her in the third quarter of the game. “They’re dicks.”

“What did they do?”

“Nothing, they’re just our rivals, so we hate them on principle.”

“Do we normally beat them?”

“We did last year, but not the year before.” Barbara’s mouth goes grim. “That was a dark time for the cheer squad.”

“Oooookay,” Jeremy says, and looks at the scoreboard. It’s close, but the right team is winning. Hopefully they can keep that going. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“You always ask me things. That’s half of what we do at basketball games.”

“What did you decide not to tell me about Trevor?”

Almost on cue someone blows a whistle, and some of the crowd cheers and claps, and Meg makes some kind of hand motion at Jeremy.

“Oh no, can’t answer,” Barbara says, too innocently.

Jeremy rolls his eyes and picks up the megaphone as Meg shouts “Hey, hey, let me hear you say- go! Blue! Mont!”

The game is back in action a handful of seconds later, and Jeremy glares at Barbara. “Answer.”

“Can’t,” she says again.

“Babs,” he says, exasperated. “It’s an easy question, why were you surprised that he said he wanted to study because of superstition?”

“Superstition?” Meg repeats, coming to stand next to Barbara. “Who’s superstitious?”

“Trevor, apparently,” Jeremy says.

Meg snorts. “Uh, basketball Trevor? Not in a million fucking years.”

Jeremy stares. “What?”

“Yeah, he apparently doesn’t have any kind of routines. Jack says he goes out of his way to avoid any kind of lucky anything.” Meg shrugs. “Some people like rituals, some people don’t.”

“Meg, you ruined it,” Barbara groans.

“Ruined what?”

“My entire worldview,” Jeremy mutters. Trevor doesn’t believe in superstitions. It makes more sense with what he knows about Trevor, but it also doesn’t make sense at all. Except, he realizes, Trevor had never actually _said_ he was superstitious. The only person who’d said that was-

“Mica,” he says, and then a little louder, “Mica!”

Mica turns, and Jeremy motions at her to come over. She does, looking warily from him to Barbara to Meg. “What’s up?”

“So we were talking about the team,” Jeremy says, casually, “and it turns out that your roommate doesn’t believe in any kind of superstitions.”

Mica sighs. “Oh, fuck.”

“Which is really interesting, because you told me the only reason he wanted me to come over was because of a superstition.”

“It worked,” Barbara points out. “You went over.”

“Yeah, but why did I have to?”

Mica just shrugs. “Because he wasn’t going to invite you over himself, and I was tired of listening to him talk about how he wants to tap your ass.”

Jeremy blinks slowly. “Really.”

“Really.”

“You’re sure.”

“I lived with it. I’m sure.”

“Huh,” Jeremy says, and glances at the court. Trevor is on the sidelines, completely engrossed in the game, clapping and shouting at his teammates. There’s a sharpness to it that Jeremy likes, a level of focus that he admires. Maybe one day Trevor will focus on him.

“Huh, indeed,” Barbara says. He can hear the smile in her voice.

 

Trevor gets to go on the court with two minutes left in the last quarter, when the score is tied.

Mica grabs Jeremy’s elbow as soon as he stands up. “Oh my god, there he goes,” she says. “He gets to end the game!”

“Should I use the megaphone to cheer for him?”

“Yes, oh my god, do it.”

Jeremy picks up the megaphone and points it as close to the court as he can. “Let’s go, Treyco!”

Trevor glances over, and as his eyes land on Jeremy, his face lights up.

“You got this!” Jeremy adds, as Mica flashes a thumbs up. Trevor grins and nods at them, just slightly, before focusing back in on the game. He looks more determined as ever.

“You know,” Meg says, materializing by Jeremy’s shoulder and scaring the living _fuck_ out of him, “as your cheer captain, I want to remind you that we’re not supposed to support individual players, just the team.”

“But as my friend…”

“As your friend, I want to say that was cute as hell, and I support you.”

Jeremy grins. “Thanks, boss.”

Meg claps his shoulder. “Go get ‘im, tiger.”

“I can’t, there’s a basketball game going on,” Jeremy says, but Meg is already walking away. He glances at Mica. “Okay, so.”

“So?”

“He likes me.”

“And you like him.” Mica raises an eyebrow. “I mean, beyond the licking thing.”

“Please never tell him that story.”

“Course not,” she says. Jeremy mentally prepares for Trevor to find out within the week. “So what’re you going to do?”

“Ask him out after the game.”

“If they lose?”

“Ask him out after the next game.”

“Good plan,” Mica says. “Solid. Ten out of ten.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “They’re not going to lose.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t.” There’s a minute and a half left on the clock. Coldwell is two points ahead. Trevor isn’t anywhere near the ball, but he’s still got that look, that focused look, the same way he reads his physics textbooks. Jeremy can’t imagine a world where Trevor doesn’t get what he wants, when he’s that focused on it. “But I’m pretty sure.”

The next sixty-odd seconds are a blur, a mess of people shouting. Jeremy can barely keep track of what’s going on in basketball when it’s boring, let alone when the score is close, so he follows Trevor instead. Everyone screams - a scored point, Jeremy thinks. The scoreboard says the score is tied.

“I really don’t want this to go into overtime, oh my god,” Mica says, but she sounds thrilled.

“God, me too,” Jeremy mutters, as one of the Bluemont players gets the ball. The stadium is so loud that he can’t think, can’t even process what he’s watching. All he knows is that Pattillo passes the ball to Trevor, and the world narrows in an instant to just Jeremy, Trevor, and the basket.

Trevor shoots. The scoreboard ticks up. The buzzer sounds.

“Oh my god, _Trevor,_ ” Mica screams, and it’s a miracle Jeremy can hear her because the entire gymnasium has erupted into noise. It takes Jeremy another second to realize - he scored the last point of the game, literally the winning point, he won the game - and then he’s yelling too, no words, just sound. All of the Bluemont basketball players are swarming Trevor, clapping him on the back, cheering.

“Fight song!” Meg shouts above the noise, and Jeremy slides into position just as the pep band plays the opening notes of the fight song. He goes through the routine beaming harder than he ever has. Coldwell can suck it. Trevor kicked their collective asses.

The band finishes, and Jeremy turns around just as all the players finish shaking hands with the opposing team. A couple of the basketball players start gravitating towards the cheerleaders.

Mica reappears at Jeremy’s elbow. “That was fucking badass,” she announces.

“It was pretty cool,” Jeremy agrees. “He’s good.”

“He’s amazing.”

A minute later, Trevor looks over at them, face shining. Jeremy waves, realizes Mica’s laughing.

“I’m gonna do it,” Jeremy says, mostly for himself. “Gonna do it. Gotta do it.”

“Yeah, you are,” Mica says, and pats his elbow as Trevor jogs over. “Hey, there’s the man of the hour!”

“The hero we all deserve,” Jeremy adds.

Trevor’s smiling, but it’s not a smile that Jeremy has seen before. It’s not carefree or happy - if anything, it looks like it’s mixed with that same laser focus that he has sometimes. And that focus is directed at Jeremy.

“Uh,” Jeremy says. He’s dimly aware of Mica moving away, but all he can see is Trevor, moving towards him and only him. “Hi?”

“Hi,” Trevor says, breathless, and one of his hands lands on Jeremy’s waist. The other catches his chin, tips it up, and then Trevor’s lips are against his.

Jeremy doesn’t hesitate before he kisses back. He winds his arms around Trevor’s neck, pushes up on his toes, and kisses him for all he’s worth. Maybe this is adrenaline or excitement, but damn it, if it’s happening, he’s going to take advantage of it.

Trevor breaks away after a second, looking oddly panicked. “Shit, I should’ve asked you first, I hope that was okay-”

“I kissed you back,” Jeremy points out. “You’re fine.”

Trevor shakes his head. “Nope, no, I need a do-over.”

“A do-over?”

“I’m gonna try it again, so. Jeremy Dooley.” Trevor’s other hand migrates to Jeremy’s waist. “Can I kiss you? And then take you out on a date.”

“Well, as long as there’s a date afterwards,” Jeremy says, grinning. “Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to go out to dinner after this.”

“I could eat, yeah.”

“That’s good. When are you free?”

“I’ve got a team meeting, but we should be done soon.”

“Twenty minutes?”

Trevor’s eyes are sparkling. Jeremy feels warm, head to toe, like he’s never felt before. Like he’s finally gotten something he’s always wanted.

“Twenty minutes,” Trevor repeats, and kisses Jeremy again, gently. “I’ll see you then.”

“Don’t be late,” Jeremy murmurs, as if Trevor has ever missed a twenty-minute count when they were studying, and lets go. It takes another minute for him to come back to himself, to think to turn around and see the rest of the cheer squad watching him.

“I guess you got to lick him,” Mica says thoughtfully. “In the mouth.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “That’s the grossest description of kissing I’ve ever heard.”

“Kissing is pretty gross,” Barbara says. “Like, that? Was pretty gross.”

“Yeah, but we had fun.” Jeremy looks over his shoulder just in time to see Trevor disappear into the locker room, still grinning. “We should start cleaning up. I’ve got a date in twenty minutes, you know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Love and thanks to [Tam,](http://mysblink.tumblr.com) as per usual, for getting excited when I texted them "okay but what if" and then waiting five months for me to get around to writing it.
> 
> For more fic/life updates you can follow me on [Tumblr or ](http://pervincetosscobble.tumblr.com)[Twitter. Thanks for reading, all! <3](http://twitter.com/ezrabridgers)


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